collection of thoughts on politics, history, economy and society

Privacy was a short historical anomaly

Nowadays you are followed by dozens of cameras even in such private places like churches, wellness areas or toilets. And we think, these pics (and films) should not be shared online. That we have a right to our privacy. But that was true only for a very short period in the existence of humankind.

Before the urbanization started broadly during the industrial revolution, most people have grown up in small villages. If you lived in a village of 300 people, everybody knew everybody, no step you made went unnoticed and you did not have anonymity or privacy. If you behaved badly at the village’s summer festival, everybody knew it the next day.

You may say that’s different. 300 people are not the whole world. But then it was the whole world for the people living in this village. You could hardly escape this world, your only world.

And you may say, it’s a difference, if someone tells someone else of your bad behavior or if everyone may see the film of it. But most of the time, the film of the real behavior will be less worse than the stories passed on orally, that grow with each recount.

Privacy was a short historical anomaly as cities have grown bigger than the tools at our disposal could handle. Now, we all live again in a little village – our world. We will have to get used to it again – and behave accordingly. Big brother is not watching, your neighbor is recording …